UK Conservative Party Wins! Shows What's To Come For U.S.

[ruby sparks]

Even if the EU does treat a post-Brexit Britain far more favourably than the EU treats its other trading partners (which I seriously doubt will happen), as long as it is not a free trade, post-Brexit Britain is economically worse off.

I have seen some pundits and commentators argue that a Brexited Britain can now get better bilateral trade deals with non-EU countries. While that is conceptually possible, I don't see why one would expect Britain which will have less clout than the EU to get better bilateral trade deals.

Switzerland seems to be doing ok.

And Norway.

On the other hand, Britain was not doing ok, compared to Europe, before it joined.

Neither of those may be an indicator of how Britain will fare after it leaves now. In the first case, those are different countries with different economies to Britain, and in the second case, it was a long time ago and much has changed.

One thing that can be said is that both Norway and Switzerland have complicated ‘trade off’ relationships with the EU which could be described as versions of the equivalent of a ‘soft brexit’.

In theory, a soft brexit may be ideal, especially if Britain could keep the good bits and lose the bad ones. Nearly everyone in the country agrees there are both of those aspects of membership.

I doubt the EU would agree to that sort of soft brexit though.

 

[Half-Life]

Did you never learn basic economics? The lower the skill for a job, the lower the pay is for that job because anyone can do it. A person can quit and be replaced by the next person like nothing ever happened. The higher the skill level, the higher the pay level. Why? Because not any bum off the street can do those jobs. Nobody can just be an engineer, doctor, lawyer, off the street. But anyone off the street can put fries into a bag for people.

This is like basic freshman level economics. Leftists still haven't got past that, though. Even Bernie Sanders, the left's hero, doesn't understand basic economics. He wants fast food workers treated like the big boys of the world.

Oh, I totally understand that. I've often said the pay an employee receives has nothing to do with the value of the work done. It's based on how easily the employee can be replaced. That's not right. You seem to think it is.

The janitor at Walmart performs an essential duty that keeps customers coming into the store. No one wants to shop in a dirty store. Yet the janitor is payed shit while the employers are some of the richest people in the world.

BTW, do you know what the opposite of living is?

But that's because the employers up top can easily do the janitor's job if they had to. The janitor would not be able to be the CEO, though.

What's your solution? Pay janitors more than CEO's? I believe I did the math once and if Walmart's profits were redistributed to everyone in the company equally, each person would get about an extra $200. Poverty solved? lol

 

[Canard DuJour]

I don't think that Jeremy Corbyn is widely popular - indeed, it would be had to imagine anyone remaining widely popular with the public at large after such a large and protracted smear campaign against him.

What makes you think it's a smear campaign, and not his own policies, that have made him unpopular?

Two things.


1) The fact that the policies themselves were and are popular :

In fact support for nationalisation and public ownership increased across the board during Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure as Labour leader


2) Having just lived throught it. Most of the mud slung at Corbyn either had nothing to do with policies (the intention was to distract from policy) or was flat false :




I personally never much liked Corbyn before he became Labour leader, and I knew he'd never appeal to working class northeners (my background). But I honestly can't think of any politician so "monstered" in the British media since Colonel Gaddafi.

 

[ZiprHead]

Did you never learn basic economics? The lower the skill for a job, the lower the pay is for that job because anyone can do it. A person can quit and be replaced by the next person like nothing ever happened. The higher the skill level, the higher the pay level. Why? Because not any bum off the street can do those jobs. Nobody can just be an engineer, doctor, lawyer, off the street. But anyone off the street can put fries into a bag for people.

This is like basic freshman level economics. Leftists still haven't got past that, though. Even Bernie Sanders, the left's hero, doesn't understand basic economics. He wants fast food workers treated like the big boys of the world.

Oh, I totally understand that. I've often said the pay an employee receives has nothing to do with the value of the work done. It's based on how easily the employee can be replaced. That's not right. You seem to think it is.

The janitor at Walmart performs an essential duty that keeps customers coming into the store. No one wants to shop in a dirty store. Yet the janitor is payed shit while the employers are some of the richest people in the world.

BTW, do you know what the opposite of living is?

But that's because the employers up top can easily do the janitor's job if they had to. The janitor would not be able to be the CEO, though.

What's your solution? Pay janitors more than CEO's? I believe I did the math once and if Walmart's profits were redistributed to everyone in the company equally, each person would get about an extra $200. Poverty solved? lol

You really like straw men, don't you?

 

[Metaphor]

If you're confident of that, run with the exact same policies next time and just switch out the leader.

 

[laughing dog]

Even if the EU does treat a post-Brexit Britain far more favourably than the EU treats its other trading partners (which I seriously doubt will happen), as long as it is not a free trade, post-Brexit Britain is economically worse off.

I have seen some pundits and commentators argue that a Brexited Britain can now get better bilateral trade deals with non-EU countries. While that is conceptually possible, I don't see why one would expect Britain which will have less clout than the EU to get better bilateral trade deals.

Switzerland seems to be doing ok.

And Norway.

On the other hand, Britain was not doing ok, compared to Europe, before it joined.

Neither of those may be an indicator of how Britain will fare after it leaves now. In the first case, those are different countries with different economies to Britain, and in the second case, it was a long time ago and much has changed.

One thing that can be said is that both Norway and Switzerland have complicated ‘trade off’ relationships with the EU which could be described as versions of the equivalent of a ‘soft brexit’.

In theory, a soft brexit may be ideal, especially if Britain could keep the good bits and lose the bad ones. Nearly everyone in the country agrees there are both of those aspects of membership.

I doubt the EU would agree to that sort of soft brexit though. ??????

The problem is that the UK does not even agree on what kind of Brexit it wants.

 

[laughing dog]

Even if the EU does treat a post-Brexit Britain far more favourably than the EU treats its other trading partners (which I seriously doubt will happen), as long as it is not a free trade, post-Brexit Britain is economically worse off.

I have seen some pundits and commentators argue that a Brexited Britain can now get better bilateral trade deals with non-EU countries. While that is conceptually possible, I don't see why one would expect Britain which will have less clout than the EU to get better bilateral trade deals.

Switzerland seems to be doing ok.

Remind me when Switzerland left the EU.

 

[bilby]

So you are implying that the EU will treat post-Brexit Britain far more favourably than she currently treats her other neighbours and trading partners. This is completely baseless; It's only justification seems to be that you think it feels like the right thing for them to do. Trading blocs don't act on feelings, they apply the rules of the bloc.

Even if the EU does treat a post-Brexit Britain far more favourably than the EU treats its other trading partners (which I seriously doubt will happen), as long as it is not a free trade, post-Brexit Britain is economically worse off.

I have seen some pundits and commentators argue that a Brexited Britain can now get better bilateral trade deals with non-EU countries. While that is conceptually possible, I don't see why one would expect Britain which will have less clout than the EU to get better bilateral trade deals.

How is economic union a disaster? Seems to me that it had worked pretty well for the UK.

Britain never fully entered the Economic Union. It retained Sterling (the Pound). In 1990, Britain, slightly unwillingly, backed out of the ERM (Exchange rate Mechanism) which I think was meant to be the prelude process to EU members switching to the Euro.

As to whether the Euro is a currency with a strong future, the answer, and even the understanding of the parameters, is way above my pay grade. But one way I conceive of it is, every time a new country enters the (expansionist) EU, it weakens/ dilutes the Euro, because new countries tend, as I understand it, to have weaker currencies than the one they join (the Euro).

Ever heard of the Lek? It's Albania's national currency. Albania is an Official Candidate to join the EU. That doesn't mean it would join the Euro straight away though.

What about the Litu? That was Lithuania's currency until 2015, when it adopted the Euro.

For a rather extreme analogy, imagine the USA allowing several sub-Saharan African economies to join the US dollar. There are all sorts of risks. Obviously, each African country would be vetted before joining to check economic and budget compliance, but, what if, despite the checks and promises, they economically fuck up? They are thus a potential liability to the dollar. This seems to be what happened to Greece, which entered the Euro in 2001, but had a major meltdown in 2008 (partly because of the global recession) which adversely affected the Euro and its credibility.

So why does the EU want to be so expansionist, you might ask? Very good question. The answers are probably a mix of (long term) economic and political aspirations. But I get the impression that Britain was not fully on board with those aspirations. It may have been Germany, and perhaps France, which harboured them most.

The two arguably weakest African economies (Somalia and Zimbabwe) both have the US Dollar as their official currency.

 

[ruby sparks]

The two arguably weakest African economies (Somalia and Zimbabwe) both have the US Dollar as their official currency.

I did not know that. It seems they use the dollar alongside their own currencies. I would not even pretend to know how that works or how it affects the dollar if at all.

Perhaps my analogy wasn't appropriate.

My musing on economically weaker countries joining the EU (and/or the Euro) being a potential risk for the Euro might still have something in it, but even then I don't know, because it's just my inexpert musing. I do read that the Greek meltdown caused problems for the Euro.

So there are net (financial) contributors to the EU and net (poorer) recipients. If more recipient countries join, in principle it seems like the contributors are paying more to more recipients, via an increased EU 'Cohesion' budget. As far as I am aware, this can work out long term (Ireland was a net recipient for 40 years but has now, since 2015, become a net contributor, albeit the smallest one) and the idea is that in the long term it is a 'positive sum game' but in the short term it could be seen as a potential drain on a contributor.

And the issue of immigration (to Britain) is part of the enlargement issue, because once a country joins the EU, its citizens (workers) can move freely.

 

[ruby sparks]

The problem is that the UK does not even agree on what kind of Brexit it wants.

That may be true of the population as a whole, and of the politicians before the recent election, but now, because of the election result, there is likely to be more clarity applied.

 

[Horatio Parker]

Even if the EU does treat a post-Brexit Britain far more favourably than the EU treats its other trading partners (which I seriously doubt will happen), as long as it is not a free trade, post-Brexit Britain is economically worse off.

I have seen some pundits and commentators argue that a Brexited Britain can now get better bilateral trade deals with non-EU countries. While that is conceptually possible, I don't see why one would expect Britain which will have less clout than the EU to get better bilateral trade deals.

Switzerland seems to be doing ok.

Remind me when Switzerland left the EU.

When did it join?

Switzerland is a member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), and took part in negotiating the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement with the European Union. It signed the agreement on 2 May 1992, and submitted an application for accession to the EU on 20 May 1992. However, after a Swiss referendum held on 6 December 1992 rejected EEA membership by 50.3% to 49.7%,[3] the Swiss government decided to suspend negotiations for EU membership until further notice. These did not resume and in 2016, Switzerland formally withdrew its application for EU membership.[4][5]

 

[Horatio Parker]

Even if the EU does treat a post-Brexit Britain far more favourably than the EU treats its other trading partners (which I seriously doubt will happen), as long as it is not a free trade, post-Brexit Britain is economically worse off.

I have seen some pundits and commentators argue that a Brexited Britain can now get better bilateral trade deals with non-EU countries. While that is conceptually possible, I don't see why one would expect Britain which will have less clout than the EU to get better bilateral trade deals.

Switzerland seems to be doing ok.

And Norway.

On the other hand, Britain was not doing ok, compared to Europe, before it joined.

Neither of those may be an indicator of how Britain will fare after it leaves now. In the first case, those are different countries with different economies to Britain, and in the second case, it was a long time ago and much has changed.

One thing that can be said is that both Norway and Switzerland have complicated ‘trade off’ relationships with the EU which could be described as versions of the equivalent of a ‘soft brexit’.

In theory, a soft brexit may be ideal, especially if Britain could keep the good bits and lose the bad ones. Nearly everyone in the country agrees there are both of those aspects of membership.

I doubt the EU would agree to that sort of soft brexit though.

I think the UK's problem has been austerity.

 

[Horatio Parker]

The two arguably weakest African economies (Somalia and Zimbabwe) both have the US Dollar as their official currency.

I did not know that. It seems they use the dollar alongside their own currencies. I would not even pretend to know how that works or how it affects the dollar if at all.

Perhaps my analogy wasn't appropriate.

My musing on economically weaker countries joining the EU (and/or the Euro) being a potential risk for the Euro might still have something in it, but even then I don't know, because it's just my inexpert musing. I do read that the Greek meltdown caused problems for the Euro.

So there are net (financial) contributors to the EU and net (poorer) recipients. If more recipient countries join, in principle it seems like the contributors are paying more to more recipients, via an increased EU 'Cohesion' budget. As far as I am aware, this can work out long term (Ireland was a net recipient for 40 years but has now, since 2015, become a net contributor, albeit the smallest one) and the idea is that in the long term it is a 'positive sum game' but in the short term it could be seen as a potential drain on a contributor.

And the issue of immigration (to Britain) is part of the enlargement issue, because once a country joins the EU, its citizens (workers) can move freely.

The difficulty is different economies running at different speeds. Joining a currency union limits the choices a govt can make in difficult times e.g. devaluation. It's analogous to states in the US or Canada. And since there seems to be zero interest in fiscal solutions, it's better that's each country issues it's own currency.

 

[laughing dog]

Remind me when Switzerland left the EU.

When did it join?

Switzerland is a member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), and took part in negotiating the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement with the European Union. It signed the agreement on 2 May 1992, and submitted an application for accession to the EU on 20 May 1992. However, after a Swiss referendum held on 6 December 1992 rejected EEA membership by 50.3% to 49.7%,[3] the Swiss government decided to suspend negotiations for EU membership until further notice. These did not resume and in 2016, Switzerland formally withdrew its application for EU membership.[4][5]

In otherwords, Switzerland is not a very good analogy for the UK, since it was never part of the EU and its economy is much smaller than the UK's.

 

[Horatio Parker]

When did it join?

In otherwords, Switzerland is not a very good analogy for the UK, since it was never part of the EU and its economy is much smaller than the UK's.

I don't see why never belonging and leaving should be so different.

I'd guess there's a limit to how punitive the EU can be without violating their WTO obligations. And remember, it's in their self interest to make a deal.

The UK should be able to offset whatever small damage Brexit causes, and work out bilateral agreements just as the other non-members have.

 

[bilby]

When did it join?

In otherwords, Switzerland is not a very good analogy for the UK, since it was never part of the EU and its economy is much smaller than the UK's.

I don't see why never belonging and leaving should be so different.

For the same reason that it's easier to get an egg out of a carton than to get one out of an omelette.

I'd guess there's a limit to how punitive the EU can be without violating their WTO obligations. And remember, it's in their self interest to make a deal.

There's no need for them to be punitive at all; Britain will be fucked anyway.

Jumping from a tenth floor window hurts even if the ground isn't covered in spikes by your enemies.

The UK should be able to offset whatever small damage Brexit causes, and work out bilateral agreements just as the other non-members have.

In the long run, yes. The long run could be very long indeed, though. And until most of those deals are done, she's in for very hard times.

 

[laughing dog]

When did it join?

In otherwords, Switzerland is not a very good analogy for the UK, since it was never part of the EU and its economy is much smaller than the UK's.

I don't see why never belonging and leaving should be so different.

I'd guess there's a limit to how punitive the EU can be without violating their WTO obligations. And remember, it's in their self interest to make a deal.

The EU has a self-interest in deterring exiteers. The EU will make a deal. But Britain will be worse off than if they remained in the EU.

 

[SimpleDon]

UK leftists were saying, "We have this election in the bag! Nobody votes for conservatives anymore! The younger generation is rising up!" Turns out, that's a big fat NOPE!

Same thing is happening in the U.S. Leftists think Trump's goose is cooked, just like they said in 2016. Don't get your hopes up and you won't be disappointed when Trump wins again.

I think that it is wrong to interpolate lessons about the UK election to the US, except that in both cases the conservative side is a minority position inside each country that stays in power, albeit for different reasons.

The Conservatives in the UK have a lock on power with about 45% of the votes. The votes for the left and the left-of-center are divided between the Labour and the Liberal Democrat parties.

The Republicans in the US also are in power with only 46% of the votes, but this is due to legal gerrymandering, in both the Constitution and in recent dubious 5-4 Supreme Court decisions.

The recent election in the UK was primarily about two subjects, Brexit and social democracy. The majority of the population are pro-social democracy and a slender majority are "Remains." So of course, the Conservatives won. Why? Because the anti-Brexit conservatives couldn't bring themselves to vote Labour, the best they could do was to vote Liberal Democrat. Neither Labour or the Liberal Democrats could form a government on their own. Labour and the Liberal Democrats couldn't bring themselves to organize a "stand-down" national unity alliance on the narrow grounds of holding a second referendum on Brexit, promising to hold an election afterward. As a result, the recent election result was sold by Boris Johnson to be a second referendum when it was anything but one and he was able to avoid the social democracy versus the Conservative's neoliberalism that so disadvantages his party.

The US doesn't have a single question like Brexit to divide the electorate and the political parties. The left is wholly in the Democratic party, although there is an echo of the Labour and Liberal Democrat divide on social democracy versus neoliberalism within the Democratic party itself, although this probably has to do more with campaign financing than with philosophy, candidates in the US are more dependent on the rich for campaign financing than those in the UK and this has many Democrats downplaying any anti-neoliberalism.

The conservative parties on the US and the UK have an advantage when it comes to campaigning, their basic message is "no" to progress and there are few people who don't feel that way about something in politics, that on some front we are moving too far or too fast. But this advantage disappears when conservatives actually are elected to office and have to govern. Most of the changes in society and the economy are driven not by the government and are changes that the government must manage for the interests of the vast majority of people in society. Neoliberalism is actively managing the changes in the best interests of the already rich to the disadvantage of the vast majority of the people and calling it laissez faire.

 

[SimpleDon]

You sound really knowledgeable of UK politics. Please tell me more about your astute insight . How do you think the DUP will react now they are considered irrelevant for starters? Also, do you think Nicola Sturgeon is now in a stronger or weaker position after the election?

Please, let's here more nuanced facts from the smart conservative.

Upset the socialist candidate was beaten into submission?

I would imagine so. You can't point to a single successful country that embraced socialism or communism as its ideology.

But I can point to many countries that are successful with social democracy. And the biggest threat to our capitalistic economy isn't socialism or communism, it is the neoliberalism that you so fervently support. The neoliberalism that suppresses wages to increase profits. The neoliberalism that has caused our income and wealth inequality, that has sent private debt soaring. The neoliberalism that refuses to reign in the worst practices of Wall Street virtually guaranteeing many more Great Recessions in our future.

 

[angelo]

Wealth inequality? Isn't that caused by a coalminer earning say $70.000 per anumm versus say a lawyer earning perhaps three times that? The problem is the coalminer perhaps didn't even finish his term of high schooling, while the lawyer not only finished all his/hers schooling, but also finished a university degree! All people who live the free world have equal opportunity. How they embrace that opportunity is what causes inequality. Not whether their nation is governed by non elected bureaucrats in Brussels.